Ratings: 'Nightly News' Up in Q1

NBC’s Nightly News with Brian Williams finished the first quarter ratings period by widening its lead over the competition. Nightly averaged 9.65 million viewers with 3.1 million in news’ target demographic of 25-54 year olds. ABC’s World News with Charles Gibson averaged 8.49 million viewers with 2.65 million in the demo and the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric averaged 6.86 million viewers with 2.11 million in the demo.Nightly News was up 9% in the demo versus first quarter 2008, for its best first quarter total delivery since 2006, racking up a 454,000 viewer advantage in the demo over World News and an advantage of nearly 1 million (985,000) demo viewers over the Evening News. Meanwhile both ABC and CBS experienced ratings declines versus first quarter 2008.